


free fall fast, stars a sight

by milominderbinder



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Ice Skating, M/M, Swearing, almost a date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 06:08:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milominderbinder/pseuds/milominderbinder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I agreed to come along before I knew you were gonna pick somethin’ so <i>fuckin’ dumb,”</i> Mickey says. They’ve already been through this argument enough times the last two days to both know how it’s gonna end up, so Ian just rolls his eyes, doesn’t even bother replying. And anyway -</p><p>“This is our stop,” Ian says, shoves Mickey in the shoulder to get him moving, and together they battle their way through crowds of grouchy commuters, out onto the platform, finally emerge into the street.</p><p>And opposite them stands the ice rink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	free fall fast, stars a sight

**Author's Note:**

> for an anonymous prompt: _mickey and ian go ice-skating! mick at the end actually enjoys being out with his “boyfriend” in public._ the title is from Ice Skating at Night by the ocean blue, and you're legitimately not allowed to judge me for how terrible a song it is because I literally just googled 'lyrics about ice skating' to name this.
> 
> also posted on my tumblr, [mickeymilk](http://mickeymilk.tumblr.com)

"This is fuckin’ dumb."

Ian rolls his eyes. His own personal broken record has been running that line for a fair few hours now, and while it started off annoying, it’s actually become kind of funny just by virtue of its repetition.

“Mickey, you’ve said that every ten seconds since we left this morning. Still isn’t changing the fact that you  _agreed_  to come along on this.”

Ian’s looking at Mickey as he talks, but Mickey’s staring stubbornly out the train window, like if he just ignores it all long enough this whole day will go away. He’s sprawled in his seat, the perfect picture of overcompensation - legs thrown as far apart as he can manage, arms crossed tightly over his chest, crotch thrust so far forwards that everyone who walks past them seems to stare at it for a moment, eyes widening before they hurry on. Every time Ian looks at him, he wants to laugh, has to force himself to hold it in.  Mickey hasn’t yet realised how many of his problems in life can be traced back to simply  _trying_ too damn hard.

“I agreed to come along before I knew you were gonna pick somethin’ so _fuckin’ dumb,”_ Mickey says next. They’ve already been through this argument enough times the last two days to both know how it’s gonna end up, so Ian once again rolls his eyes, doesn’t even bother replying. And anyway -

“This is our stop,” Ian says, shoves Mickey in the shoulder to get him moving, and together they battle their way through crowds of grouchy commuters, out onto the platform, and finally emerge into the street.

And opposite them stands the ice rink.

—

The chick at the counter wrinkles her nose when handed Mickey’s filthy old boots, but exchanges them for a pair of skates anyway. Mickey looks disappointed. Like he’d been hoping she’d send him home.

—

As they lace up their skates at the side of the rink, Mickey keeps looking around, over his shoulder, like he thinks Terry’s gonna hop out at any minute.  Ian, for what must be the thousandth time that day, rolls his eyes at it all.

“Dude, you already made us go to an ice rink in a  _different state,”_ he points out. “Literally  _nobody_ we know is gonna see us here. And even if they did, we have a whole lot of plausible deniability, we could pretty easily convince them they hallucinated it.”

Mickey just scowls in response, but his shoulders relax a little bit, and Ian counts it as a victory.

—

Ian had kind of honestly been expecting Mickey to be the worst skater in the world.  He’d probably never even touched an ice rink before - why the fuck _would_  he have? After all the complaining he’d been doing today about how _fucking gay_ skating was as an activity, it seemed logical to assume he’d been opposed to it his whole life.

But they second they get on the ice, he speeds off through the crowd with perfect form, feet sliding out from each other, dodging the other skaters with precision, leaning to the side as he turns the corner and his feet glide past each other. Ian’s jaw drops open, and he honestly forgets what he’s supposed to be doing for a second, until some kid clinging to the edge stumbles into his back and shoves him forwards, reminds him he’s supposed to  _move._ He takes off in pursuit of Mickey, suddenly feeling a whole lot less competent.

“What the  _fuck?”_ he asks when he finally catches up. Mickey just shrugs.

“I used to play hockey,” he says. Like  _that_ was the most obvious thing in the world.

—

After a half hour, they stop for hot chocolate. Ian buys, and Mickey spikes both their paper cups with a suspicious looking flask from his coat pocket. They sit by the edge of the rink and watch the other skaters zip past, laughing and screeching and stumbling and clinging to each other, and Mickey makes threatening faces at them all.

"Why the fuck do you like ice skating so much anyway?" Mickey grumbles about halfway through his drink. Ian looks over, surprised - Mickey doesn’t often ask questions about other people’s lives, and when he does he has to phrase them in a grouchy way in case anyone mistakes him as actually  _caring_ , but Ian gets it. This is Mickey showing an  _interest_.

"When I was a kid we didn’t really do much as a family," Ian says after just a moments pause . "Most of the time we weren’t even all living together, because Frank or Monica would fuck off and leave us every other minute. But there was this one winter, just after Carl was born, that we were living in this run down shitty apartment right next to an ice rink. And almost every night, Frank would take me and Lip and Fiona down there, and we’d all go skating together. And no matter how much we yelled and fought at home, it didn’t seem to matter so much, because I always had that to look forward to at the end of the day, laughing together and holding hands and eating hot dogs as we all skated around. We’d moved away by the time the rink closed for the spring, and we were never all that close ever again, so I guess ice skating just became this really meaningful thing for me after that."

Mickey’s face, once Ian’s finished talking, it’s - indescribable. It’s the perfect mixture of awkwardness and discomfort and no small amount of anger, anger at Ian’s sappiness no doubt, but it also looks like he feels a little  _bad_ now, like he might actually -  _apologise_ , or try in his own way some crude version of _comfort_. And Ian -

Well, Ian holds out maybe five seconds before the laughter he’s been holding in escapes him in one huge explosion that expends so much energy it leaves him gasping for breath and wiping his eyes.

"Your  _face_!” he manages to say. “Dude, what’s wrong with you, I just  _like_  ice skating. Jesus fucking Christ, that was so priceless, you were totally buying that!”

Mickey adopts the most horrifically offended expression and punches Ian so hard in the arm that there’ll be a bruise for months, but after a second, joins in Ian’s laughter.

For some reason they’re both actually relaxed, after that.

—

They throw their paper cups in the vague direction of a trash can when they’ve finished their hot chocolate, and head back out onto the ice. Mickey doesn’t even complain about it. They skate around in circles for a while, slower this time, actually next to each other and talking, laughing, shoving each other and mucking about. The crowd is beginning to grow as it hits midday, and with every new anonymous tourist who squeezes themselves onto the ice, Mickey seems to relax a little more.

And then -

Well.

And then something happens that Ian never thought would happen ever in his whole life.

Because then, Mickey reaches over - and he takes Ian’s hand.

"You say a fucking word and I’ll rip your dick off," Mickey mutters, staring straight ahead and tightening his grip on Ian’s fingers. Ian grins so hard he thinks his face might explode.

"No you wouldn’t," he says. "You’d miss it too much."

Mickey laughs at that. He’s still not looking at Ian, but there’s happiness in his eyes, and that’s the rarest thing in the world so it makes this whole fucking day worth it.

They keep skating until Ian feels like his feet are gonna fall off and the chick at the counter is shouting at them that the rink is about to close.

—

On the way home, they fuck in the train bathroom, face to face. Mickey kisses Ian as he comes.

"I guess we could do more shit like this," he says when they’re back in their seats. "If you want, or whatever."

"More shit I like that you think is fuckin’ dumb?" Ian clarifies, grinning. Mickey rolls his eyes and thumps him in the arm, but there’s a smile twitching about his lips.

When they get off the train back in their shitty neighbourhood, Mickey rubs his nose, sniffs, says “later”, and swaggers off, yelling at some guy in the street.

—

"Where’ve you been all day?" Lip asks, after dinner.

"Places," says Ian, and goes to text Mickey.


End file.
